Off The Wall

In 2021 the Martin family started doing family counseling. We were in a dark place after my graduation (I’d spent more time away from my family than ever), COVID, and our uncertain ties with the LDS Church had made home life tense and unhappy.

One of our first sessions was drawing/painting/depicting our Family. I loved the results so much I kept them on the wall in the kitchen/table area. It’s been a couple of years and it’s time to take them down. So here they are, off the wall and on the blog.

Enoch’s picture.

A tree representing parents with 6 branches for 6 kidlins.

Emma. — She was at SDSU but came to support when she could.

Another tree with 8 Martins under it’s canopy.

Calvin.

A one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater because family is weird and terrifying?

Oscar with 7 people and a camera?

Maybe he didn’t have time to finish.

Mine (Lisa’s)

I’m not an artist so I used a color to represent each member of the family and wrote their name as their body. I made sure to make all their eyes brown because I loved my brown eyed husband and kidlins.

David — brown — dark, earthy

Lisa — yellow — happy, bright

Emma — purple — sophisticated 

Taran — grey — hides, enigma(?)

Enoch — bright pink — drama!

Calvin — blue — cool, rational

Willa — red — wild

Oscar — orange — curious, growing

Taran

There’s a story to this. I recall laughing. I will have to get him to tell it.

I don’t know what happened to David’s or Willa’s. Makes me sad to have lost them. But I’m glad I have these ones.

Also, removed from the cork boards, under the family pictures above were these documents:

A Long Ago “After School List” with check marks for completion. Includes paper route plans.

A screen time agreement plan for the family. Another try and another fail (eventually) for reigning in screens. It had everyone’s signature on the back. I remember we went to Brookings and talked it over at a Chinese restaurant and they signed. The food was good at least.

This is proof we tried.